


Duel and Duality

by Prochytes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10067435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: The world’s greatest assassin is on the prowl in Star City. A young woman has appeared in the Glades who isn't from a remotely familiar Earth. Oliver and company must face these challenges domestic and inter-dimensional, if everyone is to get out of this alive.





	1. The Girl in the Glades

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D_ to 4x04: “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire” and _Arrow_ to 4x13 “Sins of the Father”. Angst, dark themes, and violence.

 

Eight-fifteen on a cold clear evening in Star City. The night was young, but the fight was old. Laurel Lance’s adversary was obviously groggy, but still on her feet. Laurel could feel her own muscles burning, her options dwindling. She honestly wasn't sure that she could win this.

 

Tonfas - disarmed. Canary Cry - fritzed (there was a strangeness to how that had happened which Laurel intended to explore, but not right now). Fists and feet it was, then. Her adversary was fast and graceful, with a more than serviceable arsenal of strikes and blocks, but Laurel had the slightest of edges when it came to power. _Roll the dice. She's exhausted, too. Just one more big punch…_

 

The other woman tottered from the impact of Laurel’s desperate hook. _Go down. You know you want to. Your body’s craving the ground as much as mine…_ . But the gamble failed. Steely fingers wrapped around Laurel’s over-extended wrist; a knee drove the wind from her lungs; an elbow in the back hammered her to the newly riven asphalt, while the glaring streetlights reeled above. _Got to get up. Got to fight on, somehow. But nothing left._

_I’ve failed this city._

 

“Stay on the deck, lady, for both our sakes.” The stranger was leaning against a wall, bent almost double, forcing the words out between gasping breaths. “I don’t… I don’t think that I could lay you out again.”

 

“You… you said that you caused the earthquake.” Laurel tried to will strength back into her recalcitrant limbs. It was a work in progress. “You’ll have to kill me, if you want me to stay down after that.”

 

“Huh?” The stranger’s eyes widened. “You thought that I would cause all this…” she gestured at the fractured cityscape around them with the hand that was not supporting her against the wall, “...deliberately? What kind of a crazy does that?”

 

“You’re new in town,” Laurel raised herself, with difficulty, on one elbow. “I can tell.”

 

“Newer than you’d guess.” Her opponent had picked up one of Laurel’s tonfas, and was inspecting it. 

 

“Well, here’s another thing that a newbie should bear in mind about Star City.” Laurel smiled. “It’s not just the bad guys who understand redundancy.”

 

“PUT DOWN THE TONFA AND STEP AWAY FROM THE BLACK CANARY.”

 

“What?” The stranger twisted to look at the burly figure who had spoken from the other side of the parking lot. She turned back to Laurel. “‘Black Canary’? That’s you?” 

 

“On a good day, yes.”

 

“OK. Pretty sure that anomalously chromatic songbirds don’t usually punch that hard, but I’ll roll with it.” She raised her voice. “Listen up, archer boy. I don’t want any trouble. But I’m not used to taking orders from a Hawkeye wannab…”

 

An arrow jolted the tonfa out of her hands. 

 

“Hawkeye who?” said Oliver Queen. And then he charged. 

 

Laurel, despite a sneaking regard for the ragged determination with which her former opponent fought, knew before the first blow landed how the bout would end. Fresh, the stranger might have been able to give Oliver a work-out, but the hard-won victory over Laurel had sapped almost all her strength. Oliver himself seemed a little off his game; nonetheless, barely a couple of minutes passed before the stranger slumped unconscious to the ground. Oliver caught his breath and turned to Laurel.

 

“Status, Canary?”

 

“Well, I can walk.” Laurel finally struggled to her feet. “But I can’t sing.” She tapped her necklace. “Something took out the Canary Cry at the start of my fight with…. whoever she is.”

 

“I’ll ask Overwatch to look into it.”

 

“Overwatch needs to look into our comms, too. Have you noticed that they seem to have stopped working?”

 

“I have. It was the static from your end that made me check up on you.” Oliver tapped his ear. “Now it looks like mine have gone, as well.”

 

“Strange.” Laurel frowned at Oliver. “Are _you_ OK? You looked a little… sub-par just now.”

 

“It wasn’t my first fight of the evening.” Oliver put his hand on his shoulder and winced. “We have a problem.”

 

“Besides Damien Darhk?”

 

“More urgent than Darhk.” Oliver knelt to pick up the stranger. “I’ll tell you back at base.”

 

***

 

“While you were checking out those tremors, I was investigating the reports of gang activity on Wesinger and Papp. By the time I got there, the issue had already been… resolved.”

 

Laurel reflected upon the usual character of conflict resolution on the streets of Star City. “By a bigger issue?” she asked.

 

“Pretty much.” Oliver massaged his shoulder again. “If I’ve reconstructed what happened correctly, eight of the gang-bangers were on their way home after some standard mayhem when they ran into a lone woman in an alleyway. They decided that they had time for a little fun.”

 

“Which, I’m guessing, was a mistake.”

 

“Uh-huh. The kind of mistake that means you’ll never make another. I arrived just in time to see the move she used to finish off the last one. That was how I knew for certain who she was.”

 

“And who was that?”

 

“Someone I was told about in the League of Assassins. Only one person knows the Leopard Strike.” Oliver fell silent for a moment. “The League call her Shiva. They say that she cannot be overcome.”

 

“She’s that good?”

 

“Maybe.” Oliver frowned. “She knocked me down twice in quick succession. Never said a word. The second time, I wasn’t fast enough getting back up to re-engage. She dropped one of the League’s smoke-bombs, and disappeared.”

 

“What’s this Shiva doing in Star City? Doesn’t she know that Nyssa dissolved the League?”

 

“She may not care. Ra’s told me that the Shiva stands outside League law. Violence was the League’s religion. But religions have their hermits as well as their monasteries. The Shiva’s sole aim is to perfect her art.”

 

“And now she wants to perfect it in Star City.” Laurel bit her lip. “Is she gunning for you, Ollie? Has the Green Arrow got good enough to catch her eye?”

 

“We’ll see.” Oliver sat back. “So, tell me about your day. You think that the woman downstairs set off the earthquake in the Glades?”

 

“She said she did. I found her standing, alone, not far from where Felicity had mapped the epicentre. Everyone else had fled to the neighbouring streets. She said: ‘Stay away from me; I did this.’ And then…” Laurel sighed. “Then I saw red. It was like the Undertaking, all over again. Like…”

 

“Tommy.” Oliver looked away. 

 

“Yeah.” Laurel toyed with her necklace. “I tried to use the Cry on her, but it…. sparked out. Never did that before. So I went in, and fought her hand-to-hand, but she matched me, strike for strike. Neither of us could hang on to an advantage. It felt like hours. As you saw,” she prodded a bruise, and winced, “I cracked first.”

 

“So we know that she can fight. We know that she dresses….”

 

“Like us? Yeah. It’s an aesthetic that sends a message.”

 

“And we know that she says that she caused this evening’s tremor.” Oliver scratched his chin. “But that makes no sense. Dig and Thea swept the scene after we left. There’s no kind of tech there which could possibly renew the Undertaking.”

 

“Maybe it isn’t tech we need to look for.” Laurel stood up. “I think that I should go down and talk to her.”

 

Oliver’s jaw tightened. “It would be better if I did that.”

 

“Says the Green Arrow, surprising no one.” Laurel patted him on his unbruised shoulder. “Relax. I’ve got this. I think that I was beginning to build a rapport with her.”

 

“Was that before or after she decked you?”

 

“I’ll let you know what I find out.”

 

***

 

The stranger had been sitting cross-legged in one of Oliver’s cages, not unlike Nyssa in similar circumstances. She rose to her feet as soon as she heard Laurel enter the room. Under the artificial lights of the base, her lineaments were clearer than they had been in the Glades. She stood a little shorter than Laurel, but boasted a comparable physique. Asian and Caucasian ancestry mingled in her bruised features. She looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties.

 

“Hello again, songbird. Thirsty for a rematch?” The stranger drew a hand lazily along the insides of the bars. “You bring the fight; I’ll bring the cage.”

 

“How are you feeling?” said Laurel.

 

“Groggy.” The stranger touched her neck and grimaced. “The big guy sure knows his way around a choke hold, doesn’t he?”

 

“He puts a great deal of work into not killing people.”

 

“Good to know.” The stranger cocked her head on one side. “Why are you here, lawyer-lady?” She smiled as Laurel was not quite able to suppress a start. “Ah. Thought so. It’s the paper cuts - not standard vigilante wear-and-tear. You have another job, which still occasionally means shuffling sheets. Even with your fighting togs on, you look a bit upscale for a PA. Lawyer, then, or maybe journalist. If I’d been wrong, I’d have shrugged it off as liking the alliteration.”

 

“Cute.” Laurel’s lips thinned. “You think you’re the only one who can play that game?”

 

“I’ve been in your shoes. From where you’re standing, the only sensible move in this game is not to play.”

 

“You’re probably right.” Laurel walked forward, unlocked the cage, and stepped inside.

 

“My.” The stranger’s brow wrinkled. “This really isn’t the city of the sensible people, is it?”

 

“You’re just getting that now?” Laurel folded her arms. “I’m not afraid of you.”

 

The stranger snorted. “Then you really haven’t been paying attention.”

 

“I acknowledge your strength and skill and… the other thing. Whatever that is. Given how our fight panned out, I kinda have to. But this whole Blood Knight routine you’re trying to pull? I’m not buying it. I saw the expression on your face when you realized that I thought you meant to cause the earthquake.”

 

The stranger averted her eyes. Shorn of her bravado, she looked tired and worn. Laurel persisted:

 

“You were horrified.”

 

“You’re right. I was.” The stranger’s face was still turned away. “Canary…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Is this Hell?”

 

Laurel started. “What?”

 

“Sorry. Forget I said that.” The stranger looked back to meet Laurel’s gaze. “Did… Did I hurt anyone?”

 

“We don’t think so. Folks in the Glades have got good at running away from trouble. Your only casualties were my chin, my back, my abs, and my ego. They won’t forgive you in a hurry.”

 

The stranger broke into a small smile. “They can join the club. You dished out some serious damage yourself. I’m just too stoic to let it show.”

 

“This is you doing stoic?”

 

The stranger grinned outright. “I know. Frightening, isn’t it? You mentioned ‘another thing’.” 

 

“I did.” Laurel tapped a hand against her leg. “There’s something about the way you’ve been behaving. You’re caged in a city you don’t know, outnumbered, physically overmatched…”

 

“Huh. While the big guy’s around, maybe.”

 

“... but you’re not afraid. Not even a little. It’s like you’re only here because you think that this is where you ought to be.” Laurel leaned forward. “What’s your ace in the hole?”

 

“Can’t you guess?”

 

“When I tried to use my Canary Cry on you, you put up your hand, and, all of a sudden, the tech stopped working. I thought at first that that was a coincidence. But it wasn’t, was it? You’re a meta.”

 

“I’m a what now?”

 

“Meta.”

 

“Well, I’m told that a generous helping of genre-savvy is a key component of my subversive charm, but I don’t see how that’s…”

 

“You’re a _metahuman_.”

 

“Oh. I think I can guess what you mean by that. We have a different name for it, where I come from.”

 

“So, then. What can you do?”

 

The stranger closed her eyes. She extended her hands towards the floor. Laurel felt it in the air - a heaviness, a thrumming insistency - before the shiver communicated itself to the bars, to the floor, to her own flesh and bone. The stranger’s eyes snapped open. The shiver ceased. 

 

“My name is Daisy,” she said. “Vibration belongs to me.”

 

***

 

Felicity was in the control room when Laurel returned. 

 

“Oliver’s gone to check in with Dig and Thea,” she said by way of greeting, “And you need to be aware of something. Your new friend? She is not from around here.”

 

“I’d gathered that.”

 

“Your new friend is very seriously not from around here.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You know how you and Oliver kept losing comms when you were near her? Well, I ran some scans. And then I video-conferenced Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco. They confirmed what I’d already suspected.” Felicity looked at the monitor that was covering the cells. Daisy was sitting cross-legged once more on the floor. “Your sparring partner isn’t from this Earth.”

 

Laurel frowned. “She’s from Earth-2? One of those metas that Barry says were dumped here by Zoom?”

 

“That’s where it gets freaky. Our friends in Central City have got started on mapping the dimensional signature of people from Zoom’s Earth. Daisy doesn’t display anything close to that. I don’t think that she’s even from the Earth with the superstrong flying alien chick that Barry took a wrong turn at Albuquerque into the other da…” Felicity stopped when she saw Laurel’s expression. “Oh. Oliver hasn’t told you yet about Barry and the superstrong flying alien chick? Well…”

 

“Felicity, can we take a rain check on the superstrong flying alien chick? Even though that’s a sentence that I seriously never expected to hear myself say? Solving the mystery of Daisy is kind of the priority right now.”

 

Felicity looked a little disappointed, but nodded. “OK. The thing is: I suspect that Daisy’s Earth may be radically different from ours. Even though,” she tapped the monitor, “it still has metas. I’m glad that she only set off _three_ of the security alarms with that little display just then.”

 

“Yeah.” Laurel peered absently at the screen. “But how did she get to Earth-1? She’s not a speedster, that’s for sure. Girl’s got some serious reflexes, but our fight would have lasted for less than a second if she could move like Barry. In fact, if she’s anyone on Team Flash, she’s…”

 

“Cisco.” Felicity beamed. “You’re brilliant!”

 

“I am?”

 

“More hot Central City gossip, courtesy of Oliver. Cisco’s vibes can open breaches from Earth to Earth.”

 

“Seriously, those people should set us up a news feed. Cisco can jump between universes now?”

 

“More or less. It isn’t easy, and he needs some tech to do it. But, my guess? Little Miss Daisy’s powers brought her to Star City.” Felicity sat back. “She tore through the vibratory barriers between the Earths.”

 

Laurel shivered. “When we were talking just now, she asked me whether this was Hell.”

 

“I heard.” Felicity stared sombrely at the image of the cells. “I don’t think she knew that she could do that. Which, if true, leads to the million-dollar question…”

 

Laurel nodded. “... How does she get back to the Earth she came from?”


	2. The Man in the Mirror

“Detroit?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Sacramento?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“New York?”

 

“Grew up there. For a bit, anyway.”

 

A few days had passed since the duel in the Glades. After several more rounds of tests, a long video-conference with Barry Allen, and a great deal of input from Felicity (“It’s not as if we can actually keep her prisoner if she doesn’t want to be one, Oliver. The only ways to do that would be to send her to S.T.A.R. Labs or put her in a coma, and sweet Jesus tell me that expression doesn’t mean you’re actually considering Door Number Two…”), the Green Arrow had reluctantly conceded Daisy a room outside the base instead of a cell, while the question of her future trajectory was considered. 

 

Those considerations had brought Laurel, Oliver, and Daisy to the vicinity of a hipsterish apartment block not far from the Glades. Oliver was scouting ahead; Laurel knew that, with Damien Darhk and this Shiva individual at large, he was not disposed to take any chances. She shook herself from a brief reverie, and continued:

 

“Keystone City?”

 

“No.”

 

“Coast City?”

 

“No.”

 

“Hub City?”

 

“Now you’re just dropping random nouns in front of ‘City’. That’s a place here?”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

Daisy exhaled a breath and watched it frost. “Serious imagination deficit amongst the settlers this side of the looking-glass, then.”

 

Laurel considered leaping to the defence of her universe, but found herself at something of a loss as to how to achieve this. Barry, she felt, needed to compile a Book of Interplanar Etiquette. She cleared her throat. “Are there a lot of metas, where you come from?”

 

“Hooyah. That’s…. partly down to me. Long story.” Daisy looked pensive. “Not a funny one.” 

 

“What about people like me and the Green Arrow?”

 

“Unenhanced do-gooders? Not as many. But the people who trained me have no powers whatsoever, and they’re the scariest badasses that I know.”

 

“I can relate,” said Laurel, as Oliver loomed, with his wonted suddenness, into view. “Are we clear?”

 

“Yes.” Oliver inclined his head towards Daisy. “I need a moment with the Canary.”

 

“As you wish, big guy,” said Daisy. She retired to a polite distance, and affected an absorbing interest in a fire hydrant. 

 

“Any more news on Shiva?” asked Laurel.

 

“No.”

 

“This doesn’t make sense. If she wants to fight you, then why did she pull that vanishing act?”

 

“There’s an answer. But you won’t like it.”

 

Laurel sighed. “Hit me.”

 

“When Eobard Thawne was impersonating Harrison Wells, he appeared a few times just to goad the Flash. To give him a reason to get faster.”

 

“You think that’s what Shiva is doing? Giving you advance notice so that you bring your best game when you throw down for keeps?”

 

“Could be.”

 

“That’s sick.”

 

“Assassins aren’t great people.”

 

“What else did you find out about her in the League? Is there anything that could give you some kind of edge?”

 

“Very little. Even in the League, they speak of her in whispers: Lady Shiva; Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. She plays no part in their politics. She does not partake of the Lazarus Pit, so that the blood-lust does not mar her perfect clarity. She keeps the League’s prophecies - lore with which even the Ra’s cannot be trusted. And her only interest is to fight. They say that she is like Iskandar - Alexander the Great. She’ll fight until she runs out of people worth fighting.”

 

“Not helpful.”

 

“I know.”

 

Laurel cocked her head in the direction of the fire hydrant. “Why are you keeping this private from Daisy? Beside your usual passion for compartmentalization?”

 

“I’m hoping that this man Cisco told us about can send Daisy home before the business with Shiva goes down. Whatever Daisy did wrong on her Earth, she doesn’t deserve to get caught in that kind of cross-fire.”

 

“How do you know that Daisy did anything wrong on Earth-Whatever?”

 

“I see that look in the mirror.” Oliver regarded Daisy, as the young woman stared off into space. The Green Arrow’s harshened voice sounded, for a moment, almost sad. “She did something.” 

 

***

 

“So who is this guy?” asked Laurel, as Oliver rang the doorbell of the apartment. 

 

“Someone who worked at S.T.A.R. Labs before the explosion. Cisco knew him - says he’s an engineering genius. That’s not an arena where Cisco is easy to impress.”

 

“I’d still feel better if Cisco and Caitlin were handling this.”

 

“So would I. They would if they could. But there was a break-in at S.T.A.R. Labs last week; they’re repairing the equipment that was trashed. Looks like the cold war with Zoom just got hot again.”

 

“What’s this man’s name?” Daisy asked. 

 

Oliver’s answer was forestalled by the opening of the apartment door. Just beyond stood a small, slender woman with long brown hair, in fraying dark trousers and a threadbare blouse. There was a Dictaphone clutched in her right hand. Daisy gasped. 

 

“Jemma…”

 

“I’m sorry.” The small woman’s voice sounded English. “Have we met?”

 

Laurel watched disappointment chase elation off Daisy’s face. “No. You… you reminded me of a friend, that’s all.”

 

“Then how did you know my name?”

 

“We’re here for Leo Fitz,” Oliver broke in. “Cisco Ramon sent us.”

 

“Oh. Yes. Fitz mentioned that.” The small woman named Jemma toyed nervously with her Dictaphone. Laurel could not blame her. House calls from the Green Arrow, even scheduled ones, tended to find the residents disconcerted. “You’re early. Take a seat; I’ll fetch him.”

 

Jemma disappeared further into the apartment. Daisy sank with a sigh into a sofa, delivering a small whiteboard, adorned with writing in two hands, a sheaf of papers, and a DVD of _Ladyhawke_ to a more stable equilibrium on the carpet. After a moment’s pause, Laurel joined her.

 

“You know the version of that woman on your Earth, don’t you?”

 

“Yes. Jemma Simmons. She’s a biochemist. An insanely good one.”

 

“Sounds a lot like Caitlin Snow. Do you know this ‘Fitz’, as well?”

 

“Uh-huh. Where I’m from, Fitz and Simmons… well, they have a thing.”

 

“A romantic thing?”

 

“Ultimately. Several clue bats had to be deployed. There was also a stable wormhole and a prison planet. Course of true love, and all that. If they’re half as clever here as they are back home, I think that I may soon be off your hands.” She looked up, as a short man in worn slacks bustled into the room. “Hello, Dr. Fitz.”

 

“Hello.” Leo Fitz eyed Oliver, who was looming in a low-key fashion beside a floor-lamp, and swallowed. He set down the Dictaphone which Jemma had been carrying on the table. “Cisco filled me in about your… issue.”

 

“Good,” said Oliver. “Is there any way to send our guest here home?”

 

“I think so.” Fitz settled into a chair, without taking his eyes off Oliver. “My friend Dr. Simmons… you met her at the door, she’s, um, powdering her nose right now… Simmons had a look at Daisy’s biometric readings, and compared them to equivalent data from Central City. She thinks, and I agree, that, on the basis of her calculations, I could design some technological enhancements to guide Daisy’s powers in the direction of Earth… um...”

 

“Earth-Whatever,” said Laurel. 

 

“I’m holding out,” Daisy scowled, “for a cooler name.”

 

“... of the Earth she came from.’

 

“That’s nice,” said Oliver. Laurel’s ears pricked up. Oliver Queen, aspirant politician and former playboy, might describe something straightforwardly as “nice”. The Green Arrow, even on his best behaviour, never would, and there was a mildness in his tone, as he continued, that Laurel found unnerving: “Why don’t you call in Dr. Simmons so that she can join the discussion?”

 

Fitz flushed. “Um… actually, Jemma said that she was going to have a lie-down. We’ve been working round the clock on this.”

 

“I don’t appreciate being lied to, Dr. Fitz.” The Green Arrow bowed his head. “Even from a fear that’s probably misplaced.”

 

Fitz was very still. “How did you know?”

 

“The Dictaphone; the whiteboard; the DVD. And what you’re both wearing. This is an expensive apartment, but your clothes are well on the way to being rags.” Oliver lifted his head. “I’m guessing that they were what you had on, back at S.T.A.R. Labs, when the dark matter hit.”

 

“Yes. They were.” Fitz sagged in his chair. “These clothes are the only ones we can take with us.”

 

“What’s all this about, Green Arrow?” asked Laurel.

 

“You’ll see in a moment, Canary.” Oliver turned back to Fitz. “May we talk to Jemma Simmons now?”

 

“I suppose so.” Fitz turned on the Dictaphone and spoke into it. “Jemma, they know. Don’t worry; I think that it’s going to be OK.” 

 

Fitz set down the Dictaphone on the table. For a moment, his outline shimmered and bent. When the image resolved again, Simmons was sitting in his place. Eyes wary, she reached for the Dictaphone, and played it back. Only when she had heard Fitz’s message did the tension in her muscles very slightly relax. 

 

“They’re metas,” Laurel breathed. 

 

“They’re _a_ meta, like Firestorm,” said Oliver. “The dark matter made them a composite entity. Am I right?”

 

“More or less.” Simmons rested her chin on her hands. “We ran the numbers, when it was clear that the accelerator was unstable. Truth be told, we’d both voiced our concerns in the weeks beforehand to Dr. Wells. But he wouldn’t listen to Hartley Rathaway, and he didn’t listen to us. 

 

“When the wave was building, we knew that we couldn’t escape. Fitz will insist that he was trying to shield me from the blast, but actually, I was the one shielding him…”

 

“The Möbius Rescues of Simmons and Fitz.” Daisy smiled. “Some things are clearly multiversal constants.”

 

“We both lost consciousness. When I woke up, Fitz was nowhere to be seen, but I could feel his panic, rubbing against my mind. I… there's no easy way of expressing this, but I sort of reached out in my head… and suddenly I was alone, in the dark. Then I was the one who started panicking.

 

“It took us a while to establish how it worked. Only one of us can be on Earth at any given time. The other is trapped in… another place. It isn't inimical to life, but it’s dark, and featureless, and lonely. The one on Earth can switch places by an act of will; we try to make sure that neither of us has to spend too much time Elsewhere.

 

“We communicate via the Dictaphone, and the whiteboard. Video recordings, sometimes, although that’s usually too much of a palaver. We’ve spent the time since the accident doing tech consultancy on the Internet to make ends meet, and working out how to reverse what the dark matter did to us.”

 

“How’s it going?” asked Daisy. 

 

“Slowly. But the new data from the interdimensional breaches have helped a lot. I can save Fitz. I know I can.”

 

Daisy looked at the colour in the Englishwoman’s cheeks. “You love him, don’t you?”

 

The flush deepened. “I don’t see that that’s in any way a licit deduction…”

 

“Please.” Daisy nodded towards Oliver. “The big guy’s not the only one here who’s cried at _Ladyhawke_.”

 

***

 

“Do you think that they can do it?” Laurel asked, on the way back, to break the silence. Oliver was once again scouting ahead. Daisy had been subdued since FitzSimmons had said antiphonal goodbyes at their doorway. “Bring themselves both back to Earth at the same time?”

 

“I’m sure of it. Interdimensional physics isn’t my thing - I’m more about the computers. But, where I come from, FitzSimmons are the smartest people I’ve ever met. And I used to stalk Tony Stark.”

 

“Tony who?”

 

Daisy smiled distantly, before dropping her head. “Besides, they each feel responsible for what happened to the other. That’s one hell of an incentive.”

 

“Yes. And one hell of a burden.” Laurel hesitated before ploughing on: “You never really explained how you ended up in Star City.”

 

“Huh? We’ve been through that, Canary. My powers shunted me here.”

 

“Yes. But you didn’t know that your ability could do that. Which leads to the question: what would make you turn your powers on your own body? And why did you ask me whether you were in Hell? There’s really only one answer, isn’t there?”

 

Daisy did not look up. 

 

“You were trying to kill yourself.”

 

“Yes.” Daisy sighed. “I was. I’ve been doing my best, lately, to keep it together. But I’m on my own, now, and my failures got too much. After I first developed my powers, I fractured every bone in my arms when I tried to suppress them. It still happens, if I tax myself too much without Simmons’ - my Simmons’ - tech to mitigate the strain. That was why I didn’t use my abilities when we were throwing down, except to block your screechy thing. I was sure that, if I focussed them completely on my body, it would be enough. But I couldn’t even do that right.” She raised her head. “I’ve failed my world, Canary. I don’t deserve a place in it any more.” 

 

“I don’t believe that,” said Laurel carefully. “And I hope that you don’t altogether believe it, either. A woman who can beat me - just - and still have enough in the tank not to go down first punch to the Green Arrow afterwards has something to give to any Earth.”

 

Daisy, to Laurel’s relief, smiled a little. “That fight did bring things into focus. Adrenaline is the mother of clarity. I may be looking for death, but I’m clear, now, that I want to do some good again before I find it. And - swell place though you have here - I want to do it on the Earth where I was born.”

 

“I’m glad. Good thing I let you win, then.”

 

Daisy snorted. “Yeah. Easily the most convincing dive I’ve ever seen. A casual observer would totally have assumed that you’d just had your ass handed to you.”

 

“Keep stacking up that hubris, Daisy. It’ll just make the rematch all the sweeter.”


	3. The Word in the Whirlwind

“This rig looks different from what Cisco showed us over Skype,” said Laurel. She looked at her watch, and tried not to think about the briefs piled up in her office. 

 

“I know,” Oliver knelt to make an adjustment. “Dr. Fitz and Dr. Simmons had to reconfigure the set-up. Daisy’s powers aren’t quite the same as his.”

 

“What are the differences?” asked Daisy, flinching a little as Oliver tweaked the tech-bedizened headband that she was wearing. 

 

“Basically, he’s the scalpel; you’re the nuke. Cisco can read psychometric vibes on objects…”

 

“I can’t do that. Sounds useful. And very cool.”

 

“... but he has to push hard to move anything big. I think that you’re in front when it comes to earth-breaking.”

 

“So - this tiara is supposed to focus my abundance of mojo in the right direction?”

 

“Yes. Once it’s activated, you just have to project a vibe calibrated to what the headband is putting out. If you do it here, where you first punched through, that should snap you back to your multiversal base state, and send you home.”

 

Daisy looked out over the parking lot, on which a chilly light mist had descended. “Beats a pair of ruby slippers, any day.”

 

The labours of Fitz and Simmons had consumed another couple of days. These had seen, by the recent standards of Star City, little obvious activity on the villain front. Oliver had nevertheless felt it prudent to keep Daisy’s site of attempted departure more than adequately guarded. As well as Laurel, and Oliver himself, Thea was standing sentry over the proceedings. Speedy was trying, with indifferent success, to conceal her excitement at witnessing this particular efflorescence of Mad Science. Oliver sighed, and turned back to Daisy. 

 

“Are you ready?”

 

“I was born ready. Well, emerged from a cocoon ready, technically.” Daisy squared her shoulders, and breathed deeply. “Here goes nothing.”

 

Daisy flipped a switch on the apparatus. She closed her eyes. Shortly thereafter, she extended her hands towards the ground. In contrast to what had happened in the cell, the quivering that now began to communicate itself to the surrounding area was barely perceptible. A few minutes passed.

 

“I’m not exactly an expert on these things,” said Thea, eventually, “but I’m detecting statistically significant quantities of ‘Still Here’-ness from our visitor at the moment.”

 

“How does it feel, Daisy?” asked Laurel.

 

“The strain is… considerable.” A light sweat had broken out on Daisy’s brow. “Nothing I can’t handle, but I’m feeling it. Something’s happening. But I’m not sure what it is.”

 

“Well, the night’s young.” Thea pointed at the sky over the twilit city. Brief blossoms of fireworks were visible in the distance, their brightness softened by the encroaching mist. “And someone’s celebrating.”

 

“That’s not a celebration.” Oliver frowned. “That’s a challenge.”

 

“A League signal?” Laurel looked warily at Oliver. “Shiva’s finally calling you out?”

 

“She is.” Oliver settled the quiver on his shoulders. “I have to go.”

 

Laurel moved to stand in front of him. “You really don’t.”

 

“Honour demands that Al-Sahim meet the Shiva one-on-one.”

 

Laurel nodded in the direction of Daisy. The young woman’s head was bowed now, her frame slightly shaking. “Morality demands that the Green Arrow not leave innocents undefended.”

 

“I know. That’s why I’ll contact Spartan to come with me after Shiva - since I’m not the Ra’s now, I don’t really have to play by her rules - and trust you and Speedy to watch out for Daisy while I’m elsewhere.”

 

Laurel smiled. “Wow. My little vigilante’s all grown-up.”

 

Oliver smiled back. “Took a while, didn’t it? Be safe, Canary. Look after things here until I get back.”

 

“Be safe, Green Arrow. Give Shiva something she doesn’t expect.”

 

Oliver raised a hand in salute, and loped off into the night. 

 

About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The mist deepened, as did the furrows on Daisy’s brow. Finally, Laurel put a hand to her ear.

 

“Overwatch? Yeah, I’m reading you. Good thing that you worked out how to make the comms go on functioning around Daisy. What’s the problem?”

 

Laurel listened for a moment, frowning. Daisy watched her face.

 

“Something up?”

 

“Maybe. Spartan and the Green Arrow checked in with Overwatch. They went to the site of the fireworks; no one was there. The Arrow says that he’s heading back here.”

 

“Weird.”

 

“Yeah. From what he’s said, it doesn’t sound like it’s Shiva’s way to duck out of a fight. I wonder…” Laurel staggered as a short tremor shook the ground. “Was that you?”

 

“Maybe.” Daisy looked puzzled. “Felt…. Felt like something just came loose.”

 

Laurel touched her ear again. “I’ve lost Overwatch. This is unhelpful.”

 

“Canary,” Thea had moved to the edge of the parking lot, and was peering out into the mist. “You should probably see this.”

 

“What is it? Daisy’s still here.” Laurel moved over to where Thea was standing. “Apart from faulty comms and one tremor, nothing’s happening.”

 

Laurel looked in the direction where Thea was pointing. Her jaw dropped open.

 

“I think,” said Thea with the careful calm that was never a good sign in a denizen of Star City, “I think that something is.”

 

***

 

 _Galaxied Star Cities, sleeting past. The_ Queen’s Gambit _is accepted, declined; the game plays out in a thousand different ways. A phalanx of archers; an aria of Canaries. Distant in the void, a rosary of Kryptons clicks out its sorrows: dying because the sun explodes; dying because the core explodes; dying because, because. And then Krypton does not die, because it was never there at all._

_A.R.G.U.S. is the DEO. A.R.G.U.S. is Stormwatch._

_The landscape shifts. The Speed Force is sparser, now, meted out in grudging heart-beats, on the approach to the close conveners, the almost-homes. An abacus of Infinity Stones snaps back and forth. The lives of Calvin Zabo/Johnson bubble like his potions in the alembic of fates._

_A.R.G.U.S. is Black Air. A.R.G.U.S. is…_

 

***

 

“I’m fairly sure,” said Thea, her eyes transfixed on the vista that swirled just beyond the edge of the parking lot, “that this isn’t what happens when Cisco breaches.”

 

“It’s like the Green Arrow said,” Laurel was similarly unmoving, “Cisco’s the scalpel; Daisy’s the nuke. She’s dragging this entire _city block_ through the Speed Force.”

 

“At least Overwatch called a fake gas leak on the area ahead of time. There’s no one on this joyriding chunk of Earth-1 but the three of u…”

 

Thea was still talking as light from a firework bursting on the other side of the lot threw shade and crimson across her face. She swallowed. “Shiva.”

 

“Uh-huh.” Laurel raised her tonfas, eyes darting. 

 

“This was where she was always going to be. She sent Spartan and Green Arrow on a wild-goose chase.” Speedy nocked an arrow. “What do you think she wants?”

 

“Plenty of time to ask that once we take her down.”

 

“You think that we can do that? From what the Green Arrow said, she’s just as good as he is.”

 

“There’s three of us.”

 

“Two.” Daisy had buckled to one knee. Her hair was matted with sweat. “There’s two of you. If I understood FitzSimmons correctly, it would probably kill us all if I stopped channelling this before my Earth snapped into focus. And… God, the strain…” She dropped to both knees. “I’d be weak as a kitten, even if I did.”

 

“Hang on in there”, said Laurel. “We’ve got your back. She can call herself what she likes: Shiva; Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. She’s still only human. And she’s still going dow…”

 

Daisy’s head snapped up. “Say that again.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I never heard you call her anything but ‘Shiva’. Say those other names again.”

 

“Al-Fursan; the Destroyer. What…?”

 

Daisy shuddered. “Canary, you and Speedy have to hide. Now. You’re no kind of match for what’s coming.”

 

“Why are you so scared of a name?”

 

“Not one name. That’s the point. You don’t speak Arabic, do you? The big guy does, I bet, but he wouldn’t have seen any reason to explain.” Daisy bit her lip. “My first S.O. … well, he wasn’t a lot of the things his file said he was, but he sure did know a lot of languages. He started me on a few of them, even though I never got that far. And I can tell you this: ‘Al-Fursan’ doesn’t mean ‘The Destroyer’.”

 

A second firework kindled on the other side of the lot. When the light guttered out, a woman was standing there - a slight, sinewy Asian woman, in early middle age. Her face was very beautiful. Her eyes were dead. Daisy sighed, as though all was lost.

 

“It means: ‘The Cavalry’.” 

 

***

 

(A warm still day in Bahrain, untroubled by the querulous Shamal, or by a woman’s world ending, somewhere else. Laos Spain Chile Vanuatu Finland Canada Brunei. The backdrop is irrelevant; it could have happened anywhere. The backdrop is everything; it happened here. 

 

The agent walks in; the Cavalry rides out. It could happen anywhere. It happens here.) 

 

***

 

“This is one of those scary badasses who taught you?” whispered Laurel.

 

“The scariest.” Daisy’s eyes were locked on Shiva. “And I think this version has the brakes off.”

 

Laurel slumped for a moment, but stiffened her back. “Be that as it may,” she raised her voice, “Lady Shiva - Al-Fursan - you know our ways, so you know the drill. You have failed this city. Yield while you can.” 

 

“This fight is not yours, little bird.” Shiva’s voice was deep, and slightly halting, as though rusty with disuse. When she stepped closer, Laurel could see that she was wearing a curious bracelet, bright against the sable of her clothes. “Nor yours, swift one.” She nodded at Thea.

 

“If you come after innocents in our town, you make it our fight,” said Thea. She fired her arrow. Shiva barely seemed to move as it passed within an inch of her head. And then…

 

All Hell did not break loose. It would have been less frightening if it had. Hell revealed itself in inches and fractions of a second: the moment by which Speedy’s first kick missed as their enemy walked forward; the minute movements of Shiva’s hands here and here, which sent the younger woman sprawling to the peregrine asphalt below. Laurel snarled and leapt in, tonfas spinning. Once again, it seemed that Shiva barely moved at the eye of the batoned whirl - the devil in the details. She struck: once, twice, a third time. Laurel, too, crumpled to the ground. She watched, head ringing, as Shiva walked on. 

 

Shiva stopped in front of Daisy, who still knelt in the centre of the lot, and hunkered down to look her in the eye. Daisy gazed back, chin held high. 

 

“Daisy Johnson. The little girl who makes the world to tremble. You came to my Earth looking for death.” Shiva cocked her head on one side. “What do you think, now that you have found her?”

 

“You’re not Death.” Daisy had not blinked. “I don’t know exactly how your story panned out here. What made you this. But all I’m seeing is a broken, solitary woman, who needs to believe that she’s a force of nature.”

 

“So speaks the Quake.”

 

Daisy flinched. “You know a lot about me.”

 

“Your coming was foretold.”

 

“Hmmm.” Daisy’s expression was thoughtful, as another tremor shook the lot. She looked past Shiva, locked gazes with Laurel, and laughed.

 

“What amuses you?”

 

“Just remembering something a friend said to me. You need to bear in mind, Lady Shiva, that on Earth-Whatever, it isn’t just the bad guys who understand redundancy.”

 

“Ah. So she is here.”

 

The laugh died in Daisy’s throat. “You knew?”

 

“Of course. I told the Black Canary that this wasn’t her fight.” Shiva turned, and moved smoothly into a defensive stance. “Did you really imagine that it was yours?”

 

Laurel saw a dark-clad blur streak out of the gathering night. Then she lost her tenuous grip on consciousness. The night took all. 

 

***

 

“Canary? Can you hear me?”

 

Laurel opened her eyes to the sight of Thea’s concerned face. She tried to sit up, and then wished she hadn’t. 

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

“Like I was hit by a kung-fu truck.” Laurel groaned. “I think I’m seeing double.”

 

“You might want to hold on to that thought.”

 

Laurel craned to look past Thea. Her eyes widened. 

 

The mist had gone. It was now clear that the parking lot was perched incongruously on a desolate plain. There wasn’t a Star City on Earth-Whatever. Daisy had picked a lonely place to die. 

 

At the centre of the lot, two women were locked in unarmed combat. One of them was Shiva. The other, in face and build, could have been her twin. Laurel gasped.

 

“Is that…”

 

“May.” Daisy’s voice at Laurel’s shoulder startled her. “That’s Agent May. The woman who turned into Shiva on your Earth, and trained me on this one.” Daisy gnawed her lip, as the woman she had called May staggered for a moment, barely managing a block against Shiva’s kick. “But even May isn’t a match for that.”

 

“We have to help her.”

 

“How?” Daisy’s voice was low and without hope. “You can barely stand. That Overwatch lady didn’t have time to fix your Canary Cry. Shiva fractured Speedy’s arms. And the effort of bringing us here took everything I had. Simmons would say that I couldn’t vibe the skin off a rice pudding right now.”

 

“Listen to me, Daisy.” Laurel held her gaze. “Remember our bout when you first arrived? You beat me, but you still lost, because I had a home advantage. This is Earth-Whatever. We’re in your house, now. There’s something you can do. You just have to find it.”

 

“I don’t think… Wait. You’re right.” Daisy raised her voice: “May?”

 

“Kinda… busy here, Daisy,” May hissed, wincing as another punch, and another, slipped through her guard.

 

“May, what’s wrong with this picture?”

 

“Huh? I…” May turned and, in that moment, Shiva struck. A cascade of blows and desperate, flagging counters ended with May on the ground, while Shiva knelt above. Her right hand was poised, fingers claw-like, above May’s head. Laurel remembered what Oliver had said about the Leopard Strike. Shiva spoke: 

 

“You fought well. But you are not my equal.”

 

“Maybe not.” May spat out blood and grinned. “But I just won, all the same.”

 

Shiva looked down. May’s hand was wrapped around the bracelet on her left wrist. 

 

“The thing that was wrong with this picture. I don’t accessorize.”

 

“Well played.” The dead eyes, for a moment, looked enchanted. “Very well played.” Shiva bowed her head. “I remember being you. The people; the ’planes; the chains of command. Fuel gauges and compassion and constraint. They blunt you. Slow you down. The warrior must be the warrior - nothing else. Two souls in one body cannot abide.”

 

“I disagree,” said May. “You’re an extraordinary fighter. But you’re alone.” She nodded at Daisy. “I had someone to call the plays.”

 

“An insight I shall think on.” Shiva turned her gaze to the group on the edge of the lot. “My thanks to you all. Convey my apologies to Al-Sahim for my deception. He interests me, but it is not yet his time.” She looked down again. “Farewell, Agent May.”

 

“Farewell”, said May, “Melinda.”

 

Shiva smiled as May squeezed the bracelet. For a moment, her outline was limmed with blue fire. Then, she was gone. Four women only knelt on the darkling plain.


	4. Epilogue

“Iskandar,” said Laurel. “That should have been the clue.”

 

“How so?” asked Thea. “These bone-pills are astonishing, Daisy. Does Agent May have any more?”

 

“’Fraid not. I get through them quickly.”

 

“Some people go further than the old story that Alexander the Great dreamed of new worlds to conquer,” Laurel continued. “They say that, once he ran out of people worth fighting, he would have fought himself. Thanks to the League prophecy about Daisy, that’s exactly what Shiva managed to do.”

 

“She hitched a ride out of her own reality for a fight,” said Daisy. “Guess that’s why she’s the Shiva. Was I right to think that that bracelet was probably from the place you call S.T.A.R. Labs?”

 

“Uh-huh. My guess is that the recent break-in wasn’t Zoom this time. It was Shiva. She needed an.... anchor, I suppose. Cisco hasn’t had much luck in finding a way to open new breaches that doesn’t involve someone who can vibe or mainline the Speed Force, but I suppose he built something that could snap you back to your own universe if you were wearing it when you left. Shiva stole that, and trashed the place to cover what she had taken. It was her way home.” Laurel looked over to where May was talking (a little) and listening (a lot) to her smartphone, keeping her distance from the two planar refugees to maintain the line. “Speaking of going home… who’s this guy that just rang Agent May?”

 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Daisy. “According to May, about three people in the whole world are meant to know that number.”

 

May looked up from her ’phone. “Says he’s a representative of the Kamar-Taj. The Master of the New York Sanctum, whatever that is. His people have a professional interest in dimensional incursion, apparently; Daisy’s belly-flop back into this world caught their attention. Our former Director left instructions about cooperating with them in his Toolbox.” She listened to the ’phone again. “I'm told that this will need a hair from one of you two, but ‘not the zombie’. That mean anything to you?”

 

Thea glared. “Honestly, you take a dip in one Lazarus Pit…”

 

Laurel reached under her wig, and yanked out a hair, which she handed to May.

 

“Thanks.” May walked away, and picked up her ’phone again. Laurel shifted uneasily.

 

“Daisy…”

 

“Yes, Laurel?”

 

Laurel tried to look innocent. “Who’s that?”

 

“Oh for God’s sake, _Laurel_.” Daisy rolled her eyes. “I spent the best part of a week in Star City; there was Internet; and I’m kind of like Overwatch - _Felicity_ \- when it comes to computers. How many athletic five seven-and-a-half female attorneys with a family background in law enforcement do you think there are in your town? And the Green Arrow is former millionaire playboy Oliver Queen, whose sister is currently chugging my bone-pills like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Sorry,” said Thea.

“Just leave me a couple, OK?”

“Fair enough,” said Laurel. “You’ve made your point. But what do you think of what Shiva said? That two souls can’t abide in one body?”

_“_ Shiva wouldn’t be my first pick for a life coach.”

 

“Still… do you think she could be right? I’m not sure anymore - I haven't been for a while- that I can go on being a lawyer and a vigilante.”

 

“ _The intellect of man is forced to choose/ perfection of the life, or of the work_.”

 

“Who said that?”

 

“Beats me.”

 

“She probably read it on Twitter,” said May, who seemed to be depositing Laurel’s hair at the exact centre of the displaced ground. “Daisy’s deep moments tend to max out at 140 characters.”

 

“Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn,” whispered Thea, “but Not-So-Evil-Yet-Still-Scary-Shiva is totally your mom.”

 

Daisy scowled. “Tweeted or not, I don’t believe it’s right. There’s room for more than one person in all of us. I knew a boy…”

 

“We’re gal-pals now?”

 

“I knew a boy, _when I was about ten_. His name was Matty. Matty wanted to be a ninja. Except on alternate days, when he wanted to be a lawyer. Eventually he decided that he wanted to be a ninja lawyer. I never did find out what happened to him. But - and this is just my opinion - I think that ‘ninja lawyer’ has a lot going for it.”

 

“Maybe.” Laurel continued to watch May, who had moved to the far side of the lot. “What does that mean for Quake?”

 

Daisy flushed. “That’s different. I… I’ve done a lot of harm, here. Being something other than Quake would just hurt more people.”

 

“Perhaps. But, from what Agent May told us, she and someone she calls ‘Coulson’ staked this place out for days after you vanished and they worked out what had happened. Once the vigil paid off, she took on the Up To Eleven version of herself without a second thought, to save you. Just my opinion, but I don’t think that being alone is your choice to make.”

 

“Our guests need to be in the centre of the lot,” May announced. “It’s time.”

 

“Is our caller in New York sure that this will work?” Daisy asked, as Thea and Laurel moved into position.

 

“He says so. Ordinarily, it would be very hard to repatriate a chunk of land this size; one of the Kamar-Taj would have to be here in person to manage it. But your repeated ram-raiding of local reality has made things a lot easier. He’s going to ’phone it in.”

 

“How does that work?”

 

“Like this.” May held her smartphone aloft. A sigil leapt from its screen, to hang lucent against the sky.

 

“Flatpack sorcery,” breathed Thea. “Living in the future.”

 

“Guess this is goodbye,” said Daisy. “Thank you. Both of you. And give my regards to the big guy.”

 

“Au revoir, you mean,” said Laurel. The air around began to crackle like a walk through autumn leaves. “Don’t forget that you still owe me a rematch.”

 

Daisy smiled, and seemed about to reply. But then the sigil erupted in waxing light, and Earth-Whatever was swept away. A thousand Earths unfurled before Laurel and Thea. One was home.

 

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> Daisy comprehensively fails to identify the first two lines of "The Choice", by W. B. Yeats. My thanks to Amira T. for help with the Arabic, and apologies for any eccentricities of transliteration, which are the author's own.


End file.
